For the first time, we are launching an online annual appeal to raise support for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards through Crowdrise. We are setting a big $50,000 goal and need your help to reach the top by December 2! In October, we called out to alumni and friends of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards to submit a short video sharing: what did your Scholastic Art & Writing Award mean to you as a teenager? or, why are the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards important to teenagers?

If you live in the greater NYC area, consider designing your schedule on November 4 and 5 to get up close and personal with award-winning designer Ralph Rucci!

On Tuesday, November 4 at 6:30 PM, this master of innovative cutting, seaming and hand craftsmanship will talk about his creative process and inspiration at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (5th Avenue at 91st Street).

The very next day, at 4:30 PM at the Cooper Hewitt Design Center (111 Central Park North), Rucci will teach a teen workshop in which you’ll be assigned a fictional client and will use sketching, fabric and collage to design a piece for them. Best of all, both are FREE for teens—all you have to do is RSVP here for the talk and here for the workshop!

Not if you want to attend NYU Tisch School of the Arts FREE high school programs in Spring 2015! If you’re a high school freshman, sophomore or junior and interested in filmmaking, photography, cinema studies, drama, dance, recorded music and—new this year—dramatic writing, you can apply to any of these 7 programs now!

Students from New Jersey, Westchester, Connecticut, Long Island, as far as Philadelphia and as close as NYC’s five boroughs may also find out more at an open house this Saturday, September 20 at noon. RSVP here to learn the location. Even if you can’t make it, your applications are warmly welcome!

Classes begin in February and run through mid-May and will allow you not only to develop your voice and vision but will also give you a great sense of how instruction works at one of the top arts schools in the country. All classes are held at Tisch and taught or supervised by full-time faculty.

Why write now about this opportunity? Because right now—almost—on October 15, 2014, applications (including transcripts and recommendations) are due! So let those autumn breezes inspire you to wake up and apply yourself toward an arts-filled spring. Why not?

Today is the day. The 2015 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are upon us! That new sketchbook you started this summer, that science fiction piece you wrote laying in the grass in your backyard – now is the time to share your voice with us. With 28 categories of art and writing, you can enter any masterpiece you dream up. Interested in interactive text or bio-art? Future New is the place for new media that challenges the traditional ideas of art and writing. Are you inspired by the classic work of William Shakespeare or Vincent Van Gogh? Poetry and painting are part of the roster. And for future Red Groomses, Lena Dunhams and Richard Linklaters (all Awards alums, by the way), please send your mixed- and other media our way!

Last year we received more than 255,000 submissions from talented students across the country and provided access to more than $10 million in scholarships. The Scholastic Awards have been recognized the exceptional vision of our nations talented teens for 92 years. What are you waiting for? Join the ranks of alumni like Sylvia Plath, Andy Warhol, Lena Dunham, Robert Redford and many more. You can start your submission process in three easy steps:

Mountain Goats musician, alum and national writing juror of the Scholastic Awards, and now, first-time novelist John Darnielle will be in conversation with humorist John Hodgman on Monday, September 15 at Manhattan’s eclectic arts venue, Le Poisson Rouge. To learn more and reserve a seat, click here.

Darnielle is on a book tour, promoting Wolf in White Van, a gripping and often mind-bending adventure featuring two teens caught in a role-playing game that crosses over into the real world—and when disaster strikes, the game’s reclusive creator is called to account for it.

For more about the book, click here. Here’s what John Hodgman had to say about it:

“Wolf in White Van is utterly magnificent. I was surprised and moved and amazed page after page after page. I am talking about audible gasp type stuff, and also deeper, interior gasps of reflection and astonishment and gratitude. This story is a hard and beautiful human puzzle that will be a pleasure to solve and resolve over many readings. And you can quote me on that. Every day. That is all.”

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. Practice… Or win a National Scholastic Art & Writing Award!

This week, more than 800 students with their families and teachers, representing a total of 47 states, will travel to New York City to celebrate the national winners of the 2014 Scholastic Art & Writing Awardsduring National Celebrations, hosted by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. We were absolutely blown away by the outstanding talent of this year’s national winners (check out ourrecent feature on this year’s Portfolio Gold Medal artists) and what better way to honor them for their incredible accomplishments than with a special ceremony at iconic Carnegie Hall?

This year’s Carnegie Hall ceremony will feature special addresses by entertainer Nick Cannon, Emmy® Award–winning actor David Strathairn and artist Kay WalkingStick, who will receive the program’s Alumni Achievement Award. “It is important for kids today to have the freedom to express themselves and build confidence,” said Nick Cannon. “The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards empower students, giving them an outlet to show their passion for the arts and grow their individual talent. As a creative professional myself, I am inspired by each and every one of these students.” Be sure to join the live webcast on June 6! Read More